Dig through a virtual crate of hip-hop vinyl in your browser

If you crave the old-fashioned feel of browsing for vinyl but don’t have a record shop nearby, then a new site called Digging Into Hip-Hop might be the answer.

The site uses a “3D crate digging engine” to simulate the experience of flicking through vinyl by hand using a mouse and keyboard. Once you’ve found a record you like the look of, you can pull it out and listen via an embedded YouTube player.

As the name of the site suggests, Digging Into Hip-Hop is limited to hip-hop records, but it will automatically connect you to Discogs to buy the record if you like what you hear. The site currently only offers two crates with a total of 60 records, but more titles are being added regularly.

Digging Into Hip-Hop isn’t the only virtual crate digging experience available: last week an app called Trackstack launched that aims to bring the record shop experience to Beatport customers. [via The Vinyl Factory]